Château de Combourg
In the other direction, south and east, the landscape offered a quite different view: through the windows of the great hall one saw the houses of Combourg, a pond, the embankment of the pond along which ran the Rennes high-road, a water-mill, a meadow covered with herds of cows and separated from the pond by the embankment. Along the edge of this meadow stretched a hamlet forming a dependency of a priory founded in 1149 by Rivallon, Lord of Combourg, and containing his mortuary statue, recumbent in a knight's armor. Beyond the pond, the ground rose gradually and formed an amphitheater of trees, whence issued village belfries and the turrets of country-houses. On the far horizon, between the west and the south, were outlined the heights of Bécherel. On that side, a terrace lined with large coppices skirted the foot of the castle, passed behind the stables, and repeatedly joined the fountain garden which communicated with the Great Mall.
If, after this too long description, a painter were to take up his pencil, would he produce a sketch resembling the castle? I do not think so; and yet the subject lives in my memory as though I had it before my eyes: so great is the power of recollection, so small the power of words in the expression of material things. When I begin to speak of Combourg, I quote the first couplets of a ballad which will charm none but myself: ask the Tyrolean herd why he finds pleasure in the three notes or four which he sings to his goats, notes of the mountain, flung from echo to echo to resound from one side of a torrent to the other.
My first appearance at Combourg lasted but a short while. When a fortnight had passed, the Abbé Porcher arrived, the principal of Dol College; I was handed over to him, and followed him despite my tears. I was in a fashion, connected with Dol; my father was a "canon" of the town, as the descendant and representative of the house of Guillaume de Chateaubriand, Lord of Beaufort, who in 1529 founded one of the first stalls in the cathedral choir. The Bishop of Dol was M. de Hercé, a friend of my family, and a prelate of great moderation in politics, who, kneeling, and crucifix in hand, was shot at Quiberon on the Champ du Martyre, together with his brother, the Abbé de Hercé[82]. On reaching the college, I was entrusted to the special care of M. l'Abbé Leprince, professor of rhetoric and a thorough geometrician, a man of intelligence, handsome, devoted to the arts, and a fair portrait-painter. He undertook to teach me my Bezout[83]; the Abbé Égault, master of the third form, became my Latin master: I studied mathematics in my own room, Latin in the common school-room.
It took some time for an owl of my species to grow accustomed to a school cage and to measure its flight by the sound of a bell. I was not able to make those quick friends with whom fortune supplies one, for there was nothing to be made out of a poor urchin who was not even endowed with pocket-money; nor did I join any set of hangers-on, for I hated protectors. In our games, I did not claim to lead others, but neither did I wish to be led: I was fitted to be neither a tyrant nor a slave, and so I have always remained.
And yet it happened that I soon became the centre of a set; later, in my regiment, I exercised the same power: plain ensign though I were, the older officers spent their evenings with me, and preferred my quarters to the coffee-house. I do not know whence this came, unless it were due to the ease with which I entered into the minds and adopted the manners of others. I was as fond of hunting and coursing as of reading and writing. To this day, it is a matter of indifference to me whether I speak of the most commonplace things or discuss the loftiest subjects. I am very little attracted by cleverness, and find it almost disagreeable, although I am not a fool. No imperfection offends me, except mockery and self-conceit, which I have great difficulty in not defying. I find that others are always my superiors in some respect, and if perchance I feel myself to have an advantage, I am quite embarrassed in consequence.
My power of memory.